How to find a turned-off mobile phone

Janos GalUpdated March 23, 2017

Nothing is more frustrating than losing your mobile phone when it is off or on silent. If you have lost your phone and it was in silent mode, all sorts of things can go through your mind. Having lost all your favourite music, numbers of friends and family, login details and your ebooks can be a shocking experience. But with some easy-to-use tools and some simple steps, you may be able to retrieve your turned-off mobile phone.

Sit down and calm down. Retrace you steps by thinking through where you have been and where you have last used your mobile phone. Often you will find it under the sofa in a cafe or between the cinema seats. Look in all sorts of impossible places, like in the fridge or in the washing machine. You may have put it in unintentionally with the food or your clothes.

Rent a metal detector and walk around your house with it. If you cannot find the mobile phone in the house, walk around in the garden or the places where you think you may have lost it.

Call the network provider and ask for your mobile phone's last GPS location. Often, the network provider will be able to trace it for you with the same mechanism the police or ambulance locates you searching for your phone's GPS location. Your phone will most likely be in the same place, or near, where it sent the last GPS data from.

Buy a small beeper that functions like a door buzzer and attach it to your phone. When you cannot find your turned-off mobile phone, press the button that will activate the buzzer on your phone.

Tip

Install tracking software programs on your mobile phone at the time of purchase, so when you lose it you can track the last location of your phone using the tracking software from your computer (see Resources).

Warning

Call your network provider and block your phone if you cannot find it within two hours of losing it. The person who has found it may run up a huge bill if you are not quick enough to block the services on your phone.

Resources

About the Author

Janos Gal has been writing since 2008. He wrote for the "Global Journalist" magazine in 2008 and for the "Estrella de Arica" daily in 2009. Gal has traveled extensively in Europe, South America and the United States. He holds a Bachelor of Arts, honors, in journalism from Edinburgh Napier University.